Page 73 of Been There Dragon That
She was in love with a man who could turn into a dragon.
A man with fangs.
A man who wanted to bite her and bond to her with some kind of magickal soulmate promise.
And she wanted all those things too.
Several little toddler boys started screaming behind her. Rylee turned and winced at the sight. They were about to knock over all the water pitchers and nobody was going to get there quick enough.
“Brandon! Stop.”
“Matthew and Tristan, don’t you dare—”
It was too late. One boy shoved another, and the card table jiggled enough. Four pitchers of water, koolaid, and tea cascaded from the table to the floor and partially onto the children.
Rylee popped out of her chair. “I’ll find the mop!” She’d much rather do that than attend to the now sobbing sopping wet children.
Mrs. Sampson murmured something after her about how sweet she was.
She hurried through the swinging door into the large kitchen with its mixture of commercial and home appliances. It was cobbled together and felt natural. They fed a hundred people at a time quite regularly from what she’d been told. Sometimes several hundred.
She went straight for the door in the corner. Mops were almost always to be found in closets. The door didn’t disappoint. Not only was there a mop and a rolling yellow bucket, there was a faucet at the perfect height to fill the bucket.
She poured in the soap and then turned on the water.
A shadow moved beside her. “I found the mop, I was putting some soap in the water to—” Her words left her when her eyes met Jeff’s. Cold terror gripped her stomach and squeezed. Her heart leapt into her throat.
“If you make a single sound, I’ll make sure your new friends and their children suffer.”
Fuck.She sucked down the scream clawing at her throat right behind her heart. “Please.”
“I like that word coming out of your mouth. You should say it more.”
The babies. The women. The gymnasium was full of mothers and children and grandmothers, granted a few of the women could turn into huge predatory beasts, but not without great cost to themselves. A cost they shouldn’t have to pay for her bad luck with men.
“Why won’t you let me go?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Because you’re going to be my wife. Your money is going to buy me the next election for senator’s position and beyond. You don’t get to leave me, Rylee Florence.” Each word was ground between his teeth. His face was red, and his jaw was flexing. His fists clamped open and shut at his sides.
“You’re going to walk out this back door with me without a single tear. One signal from me, and this place becomes a news story with the headline: Massacre.”
Rylee wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks, sucked back the sob, and swallowed down the bile in the back of her mouth. She didn’t want to believe he would murder innocent women and children just to take her back to Texas and marry her, but she also couldn’t risk it.
The vision of them all lying lifeless and bloody on the floor flashed through her mind. Wailing cries. Screams of pain and anguish. The whole town would suffer if she didn’t go.
“I’ll go. Please leave them.”
He took a step back out of the closet and encouraged her to move forward.
She took two steps, and he roughly grabbed her arm, dragging her the rest of the way. His fingers bit into her arm like a tightening vice.
Pain shot through her nerve endings, but she didn’t make a sound. She would protect those women and children, no matter what it cost her. All that mattered was getting Jeff to back off. To leave them alone and unharmed.
“You won’t hurt them. Promise me.” He was hauling her across the back parking lot now, toward a large black SUV.
Panic made her fight. She didn’t mean to, but the vehicle was the same that she’d seen outside her house, outside the store. The man who’d tried to kill her. The man who’d tried to get onto the tribe’s property.
Wrath said they’d been watching him. How did he get away?
